How to Make a Podcast

Learn how to make a podcast in the comfort of your own home. Now you can sound like a pro!

Everyone wants to be heard– well, each day technology is making that more of a reality for people and making a podcast is one of the best ways to get your voice out there. What is a podcast? A podcast is basically a homemade radio-style show that you post on your website or blog. Sounds hard, you say. Wrong! Making a podcast is actually very simple, and we’ve listed out the steps you need to make a successful one. As with anything, you can get the best of the latest products around to create your podcast, but, believe it or not, the basic nuts and bolts you’ll need are a computer, a microphone and a website or blog– even older computers work well and you can also use a blog site’s bandwidth, such as Blogger’s, to publish your podcast. More on that later…

Easy Steps to Making a Podcast

1. Get Inspired and Make It Your Own. If you want to make a podcast then you obviously must have some notion or idea about what you want it be about. Whether it’s cars, sports, fashion, politics, or even tech–use your interests to carry over and make a superior podcast. It’s usually a good idea to know what you want to say before going on the air so make an outline of the session’s topic and prep yourself before recording.
2. Keep a Schedule. Podcasts can be daily or weekly, or just whenever you want. Consider how much time you have and work out a schedule with yourself, and/or with who ever is doing the show with you, to allow enough time for this task.
3. Get Equipment. You will need some equipment like a microphone, a computer (with Internet connection) and some sort of audio recording software.
4. Record and Tag. Try using Audacity, which is free, to record your show, and don’t forget to label and save your information.
5. Save and Edit. Save your audio file (in MP3 format) to your computer desktop and edit out extra background noise or long periods of silence.
6. Make an Intro. You can spice up your podcasts by adding an intro like some “lead-in” music or something else that you think people will find appealing– or if you don’t care what people think then just put whatever you want, or don’t put an intro at all.
7. Create your RSS podcast feed. The feed must meet all industry standards for a valid 2.0 feed with enclosures. Use a free service such as Apply Tools.  Starting a blog is probably the easiest thing you could do, so start a blog for your podcast but don’t post anything on it yet.
8. Put your RSS podcast feed on the Internet. Go to Feedburner and type in the URL of your blog and click “I am a podcaster!” Configure your podcast on the next screen. Only add elements that directly relate to you podcast. Your feedburner feed is your podcast.
9. Go to OurMedia.org and sign-up there. Then go to your files, and upload your MP3 file.
10. Publish it. Post it on your blog or website -make the title of the post the title of that episode of the podcast and enter the URL for your audio file. Write a brief description under of the podcast’s content—make it clever and informative so people want to click on it and listen. At the end of the post, put a link directly to your media file.
11. Wait a little bit. In a few minutes, you’ll have an episode! You may want to wait before submitting it to iTunes or another podcast directory until you’re completely satisfied with your podcast and you have some experience. And don’t forget to update and announce when you have new episode coming out.
12. Get subscribers and regular listeners. Put the appropriate subscription buttons on your website so people can subscribe to the RSS podcast feed. Everybody wants “regulars.”
13. List in Directories. This is a great way to get people to notice your podcast and pick up listeners. In addition to submitting it to iTunes, you can post it on other sites like Yahoo! Audio Search.